5 Spring and Summer Recipes We Love

Apparently, I started a series back in 2015 called “Recipe Roundup,” posted two posts (here), and then forgot about it. Since starting my YouTube channel (and sharing many of our meals in my vlogs), I’ve gotten dozens of requests to share more of our favorite recipes on my blog. So, let’s get back into recipe roundups, shall we? Here are five spring and summer recipes we love!

1 | Copycat La Madeleine Salad

Have you ever eaten at La Madeleine? It’s similar to Panera, but much better (in my opinion). Anyway, there’s a delicious salad at La Madeleine that we recreate at home all the time. It’s not an exact recipe, but here’s the general framework:

Ingredients

Box of spinach

Cut up red pepper (we use one)

Cut up strawberries (we use about 10)

4 strips of bacon, fried and chopped

Chicken (we use either shredded rotisserie chicken or grilled)

Balsamic vinaigrette

Sometimes, we also add feta cheese, cucumbers, avocado, and/or tomatoes. This salad is both light and filling. We absolutely love it and eat it several times a month once the weather gets warm! (In the above photo, the salad is being served with roasted sweet potatoes.)

2 | Arugula, Feta, and Watermelon Salad

This is my all-time favorite summer salad (the La Madeleine copycat is Riley’s). It is so, so yummy. We use Ina Garten’s recipe here, except we use balsamic vinaigrette rather than making our own dressing (we have really delicious high quality balsamic on hand from a local farmer’s market). We sometimes add feta cheese, rotisserie or grilled chicken, avocado, and/or cherry tomatoes to this dish to “beef it up” so that it can serve as dinner on its own.

3 | Greek Lemon Chicken with Tzatziki Sauce

Oooh, my mouth is watering just talking about this recipe. It’s GREAT. We’ve made it a dozen times and it’s our go-to summer meal when we’re having company because it’s easy and everyone loves it. The recipe for the chicken marinade and tzatziki sauce are here; the Greek salad is made up, but it’s basically a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, a tomato, half an English cucumber, half a red onion, and about a 1/2C of feta marinated in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley.

4 | Summer Vegetable Gnocchi

This recipe is fantastic! We discovered it a year or two ago in a Blue Apron box, but the recipe is available to the public online here. We love this recipe for spring or summer nights when we want something just a little heartier than salad, but nothing too heavy. This fits the bill perfectly. It’s delish!

5 | Burrito Bowls

If I admitted to you how often we have these for dinner, you’d be shocked. We eat this meal all. the. time. For one, it’s super easy and filling. For two, it makes amazing leftovers. You can throw in whatever you want, but here’s what we usually use:

These look so fresh and delicious for spring! I bought the ingredients for the Madeleine salad for tomorrow night to hopefully bring some spring to rainy Rhode Island.

I’ve been loving a couple Hello Fresh recipes lately and am making Sizzlin’ Southwest Chicken and peppers for dinner one night this week. It’s served with a side of roasted sweet potatoes and is so, so delicious. Maybe I’ll throw together a cornbread for a little indulgence to go with it 🙂

Feel silly asking, but I made the zucchini and I could not get the parmesan mixture to stick so nicely! Do you actually sprinkle or do you dip in the mixture? Any tricks? I used spray olive oil on it, so maybe just didn’t enough of that? It just seemed to fall right off.

I tried a variation on your copycat La Madeleine salad–it was great! Thanks for the inspiration 😉 A friend of mine came over for dinner, and she contributed roasted sweet potatoes with brown sugar, cumin, and a hint of cayenne pepper. Sweet and spicy, and delicious!

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Hey, I’m Blair!

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I'm a small town Texas transplant, wife, and dog mom. I believe in slow, simple, intentional living in lieu of the world's breakneck pace and write honestly with the hope of encouraging other women. Grab a cup of warm and enjoy!
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